We all know that neighborhoods can be quite varied. From one block to the next, the urban landscape can change completely, and often nearby streets are regarded as being completely different from our own. We may know the guys across the street but have no idea who lives 100m down the road. Rosengård is a liminal community where immigrants are the majority, and it is known that there are about 50 different language groups distributed across the area. Thus, neighborhoods become microcosmos.

Exile on Amiralsgatan

From the nationality map, one can see that Rosengård acts as a haven for certain nationalities. Why do we stick around our own people, even in the furthest corners of the planet? One answer can be that it’s simple: in ethnic neighborhoods it’s easier to feel understood, to buy the same roots for your mother’s stew, to say hi in your own language, and why not, it may be simpler to get a job.

My experience as a foreigner in Norway tells me that while there are actually very few Costa Ricans in Bergen (and supposedly no more than 100 in the whole country), it is convenient to have my countrymen around. There are no Costa Rican corner shops, restaurants or churches, but it is good to smile and be understood.

At the same time, this is a self-imposed exile from your new country which very often earns little public support from local residents (notable exceptions include Little Italy and China Town). One might only wonder what role does the place you live in play in this situation, and if it can be a tool to break this wall.

Choosing a site

I chose 5 sites based on the density of use by local people: cars and trains come and go, but pedestrians often live here. Very few people walk through Rosengård casually. Therefore, these are the main urban spaces where I will work: located in different parts of the district, they aim to knit a web of urban life into its surroundings. After all, if the neighbors can have it, so can we.

The ghetto holds a great potential as an urban communicator: it is a place to share stories of arrival and departure, of new life and also of generational gaps. It is a place of hope and new beginnings, but it is a place of loneliness too. Rosengård is one such place: it is a character in itself, in the lives of the people who live and work in it. How do people interact with these character?

“… space becomes an ‘acting place’ rather than the place of action.”

Bal, 1997

As we can read in the news from time to time, this relationship between place and inhabitants can be quite tense and often mutually rejectful. It is hard to point down where the root of the problem may lie, but one can wonder: can giving this place a more humane face result in a change in direction, as to how the people of Rosengård treat their home? Many neighbourhoods have these “humane” elements, be it parks, gardens, corners, shops or cafeterias, these elements create points through which people can engage their life-contexts and relate. A reason to break the ice, so to say.

About 47% of the population of Örtagården in central Rosengård, is under 24. The landscape is charged with hilly paths (good for the legs!), small football goals, slides and swings. It seems like a good place to move, where your body will be put to work (watch out in the winter though). However, if one looks closer, it seems like a pretty cold place to be when you are neither a kid, nor an adult. If you are old but not SO old, and young but not SO young, there is nothing here for you. Has this topography forgotten the young?

A pre-school in Malmö’s Rosengård district was shut down on Monday morning in the interests of staff safety following an extended period of threats and harassment from a gang of local youths.

Henrik Wolter, a health and safety representative for the Swedish Teachers’ Union, took the decision to close the pre-school with immediate effect following consultation with district leaders.

The 34 children who attend the Herrgården pre-school have been moved temporarily to a school in Käglinge in south-east Malmö, but district chief Eva Ahlgren expects the children to move to a new location in Rosengård on Wednesday. In the longer term, places have been set aside for the children at a pre-school affiliated with Rosengård School, which is currently being extended.

“The closure of Herrgården’s pre-school was necessary. Staff have been repeatedly exposed to fighting and harassment. On one occasion a glass bottle was thrown from a window at one of the employees,” said Ahlgren.

She added that she had not previously been aware of the problem.

The pre-school is located in an area at the centre of a housing standards scandal last year when its run-down apartment complexes were found to be riddled with mould and cockroaches.

Herrgården has also served as a flashpoint for many of the disturbances that have plagued the predominantly immigrant suburb of Rosengård in recent years.

Around the pre-school lie shards of glass while the front of the building is marked by a bullet hole, the source of which is unknown.

“This is caused by gangs of criminal youths, or idiots as I usually call them,” Andreas Konstantinides, chairman of the Rosengård district council, told the online edition of the Svenska Dagbladet daily.

The social landscape has many layers, which have different actors and often, different yet intertangled causes. Architecture is a one tool in a bigger panorama, and it must work together with other disciplines in order to address the situation through a wider scope. At the time of its creation, Rosengård was thought of as a one-time solution for the housing deficit in 1960’s Sweden, but as it has become visible after some time, single-minded efforts often leave a number of questions unanswered.

However, architecture must operate on different levels. Contrary to what has been said, space is not the prime matter or architecture (or at least not always). Some times we come across potential situations where people are the prime matter we have to work with and shape, and thus we as architects must address problems through a wider perspective, but also we must be humble before the magnitude of the challenges we face.

So, you’re a happy toddler until one day dad (or, if you’re lucky, the whole family) has to move. Sure, many people move during their lives, but what happens when you move to another country, with another language and another understanding of the world. If you’re young enough, chances are you’ll have little problem learning the language and sumberging yourself in your new country. But at the same time, your parents may experience quite the opposite: anxiety, fear, isolation… the feeling of being a fish out of water. How does exile affect close personal relations?

Being Rosengård a transition point between the outside world and the Swedish life, as an architect one has to wonder: how does space contribute to close or increase this emotional and cultural gap?